There is increasing consumer demand for healthy foods and healthy ingredients. Consumers demand products having improved nutrition, including, for instance, fewer calories, lower fat content, and reduced sodium. This demand comes with a corresponding demand that the healthier foods and beverages have a taste and texture comparable to the food products they are formulated to replace. Consumers also desire the convenience associated with the original products, including pre-packaged snack foods and products with easy preparation.
High intensity sweeteners are often included in products to reduce the amount of nutritive (i.e., caloric) sweeteners, such as sucrose, dextrose, fructose, corn syrup, or high fructose corn syrup. Inclusion of high intensity sweeteners can significantly reduce the caloric content of the food or beverage products. High intensity sweeteners can be included in relatively small amounts while contributing the sweetness of a much larger content of nutritive sweeteners. A variety of high intensity sweeteners are used in food and beverage products, including, for example, stevia, acesulfame potassium, aspartame, saccharin, cyclamates, sucralose, alitame, saccharin, neohesperidin dihydrochalcone, cyclamate, neotame, N—[N-[3-(3-hydroxy-4-methoxyphenyl)propyl]-L-a-aspartyl]-10 phenylalanine 1-methyl ester, N—[N-[3-(3-hydroxy-4-methoxyphenyl)-3-methylbutyl]-L-aaspartyl]-L-phenylalanine 1-methyl ester, N—[N-[3-(3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenyl)propyl]L-a-aspartyl]-L-phenylalanine 1-methyl ester, and salts thereof, and steviol glycoside sweeteners, such as rebaudioside A, rebaudioside B, rebaudioside C, rebaudioside D, rebaudioside E, rebaudioside F, dulcoside A, dulcoside B, rubusoside, stevia, stevioside, and steviolbioside. The non-nutritive sweeteners have varying sweetening power relative to sucrose. High intensity sweeteners can be categorized as either artificial or chemically synthesized sweeteners (e.g., acesulfame potassium, aspartame, sucralose) or natural high intensity sweeteners extracted from natural sources (e.g., extracts from Stevia rebaudian or luo han guo fruit).
High intensity sweeteners are widely used in products such as diet soft drinks, chewing gum, beverage concentrates, and other “sugar-free” products but the wide scale use of high intensity sweeteners has been limited, at least in part, due to consumers perceiving many of them, both those considered natural and artificial, as contributing undesirable bitterness to the food and beverage products in which they are used. The high intensity sweeteners most criticized for contributing undesirable bitterness are stevia, aspartame, Neotame®, acesulfame potassium, saccharin, and other peptide-based high intensity sweeteners.
There has also been a push to decrease the sodium content of various food products. While sodium chloride can simply be removed from food products, there is consumer resistance to this approach and there is consumer demand for food products that lack sodium while still having a similar salty taste characteristic of foods containing sodium chloride.
A variety of salt substitutes are marketed today, including, for example, potassium chloride, potassium lactate, or reduced-sodium salts. However, certain salts are perceived by a number of consumers as contributing bitterness to food and beverage products. For example, a subset of consumers perceives potassium chloride (KCl) as being bitter and having an unpleasant aftertaste. While KCl has been considered a possible replacement for sodium chloride when seeking to reduce the sodium content of food products, KCl has had limited usefulness in food products because many consumers perceive KCl as being bitter.
It would be desirable to meet the consumer demand for food and beverage products that include substitutes for sodium chloride and nutritive sweeteners while providing products with a taste similar or better than those including sodium chloride and nutritive sweeteners.